In 26 years as a credentialed member of Japan’s baseball media, I never quite came to grips with how companies, political parties and public figures have generally managed to prevent or delay awkward stories about them in the mainstream press.
I have watched media outlets put the brakes on reporters out of fear of retaliation, but I never quite understood some of the underlying social forces at work until I began operating outside the system again in March and witnessed a drastic change in my own status from a veteran writer for an important media player to a veteran writer for an independent and inconsequential blog with no one looking over my shoulder.
Looking over your shoulder
Japanese society’s most powerful guardrails are not laws and courts, but companies. And one’s status is almost entirely dependent on the size and status of the company that will hold you accountable if you offend someone.
Japanese groups on the receiving end of all but the most trivial and baseless complaints are expected to find fault with individuals within their organization. If Kyodo News publishes an accurate newsworthy story a baseball team does not want to be made public, the team will complain and expect action to be taken.
Unscrupulous individuals plagiarized my colleagues’ original exclusive content in the past and then demanded apologies from our writers who exposed their transgressions. And because these individuals then worked for media outlets that subscribed to Kyodo News, the writers whose work they had plagiarized were required to write apologies.
I witnessed first-hand small news stories being delayed until teams agreed on the timing for the news to break, and was punished for publishing newsworthy information — my scoop of the Yomiuri Giants’ first use of the posting system with pitcher Shun Yamaguchi in 2019.
A Giants employee, playing the role of a lying sack of shit, lodged a disingenuous complaint, claiming there was no truth to my statement – a week before the club posted Yamaguchi. But because of that, my valiant department head was forced to sit through hours of abusive meetings because I had tweeted about Yamaguchi’s posting
Rather than contest the accuracy of a story Kyodo knew to be true, the company justified punishing me by pointing out my violation of its social media rules. This came after hiring me in full knowledge of my existing twitter, blog, and podcast footprint and taking no action to bring me into compliance for over seven years.
“I’m shocked, shocked to find gambling going on.” –Captain Louis Renault in “Casablanca” as he closes a casino after recievng his winnings.
I had always attributed these departures from American journalistic norms to a different relationship in Japan between the media and the organizations they cover. But as an outsider now for the first time in 26 years, I realize it is more than that.
Fault-finding nation
Japanese are trained from childhood to be compulsively obsessive when it comes to details. The Japanese word for obsession, “kodawari,” implies a fanatical attention to detail and is considered a praiseworthy trait, and this is reflected in Japanese society’s extreme regard for craftmanship.
In my new job as a tour guide, I explain to Tokyo visitors that kodawari possesses powerful magic. The word — and the image it evokes — encourages extreme effort in the pursuit of excellence, but that it is also used as an excuse for abuse of power between individuals and within companies.
Japanese consumers expect high standards for quality, and Japanese politicians are proud of touting this to the world as an example of Japan’s cultural exceptionalism, but that very real quality is based far more on a deeply ingrained culture of fault-finding with oneself and one’s peers than it is on individuals’ love of perfection.
You are who hires you
A few years ago, Kyodo’s overseas department had a director charged with the difficult task of whipping the staff into shape to cut the red ink that comes with the English language section’s permanent role as a loss leader. Although a gentle man and kind at heart, he had a low tolerance for resistance and was prone to combust into tirades.
Cutting people down to size was his mission, and one day in 2016 when telling me I wouldn’t be covering the World Baseball Classic for the first time in its history, he tried it on me.
“You think you’re a big shot, but nobody would even to talk to you if you didn’t work for Kyodo News,” he said, although I had been talking to many of Japan’s biggest stars at the Yomiuri’s English paper for 13 years — and even before that as a freelancer.
What sounded ridiculous and arrogant at the time, proved painfully prophetic this spring, when I assumed my mandatory retirement from Kyodo News would unleash my potential to write daily about ballplayers in Japan. Instead, it taught me another lesson.
If jballallen.com writes a blog post a team does not want published, it can’t call my boss to bring the hammer down on me, and it can’t punish my colleagues. With no one to complain to, teams are no longer allowing me even the crappy restricted access offered to credentialed writers since COVID.
In March, I turned to the Seibu Lions, who have been the team most open to the media AFTER COVID stopped being a national health emergency. Seibu has let reporters stand on the field during the home team practice and even sit in the dugout and talk to whomever they like as if COVID had never happened.
This year, the Lions told me all I needed to do to report from their games was to request a pass a day in advance, and that worked, for a time. One day, I told them I’d like to talk to reliever Kaima Taira, so I asked if they could make him available on a specific date in the future to answer specific pre-approved questions.
The team did not want me asking what Taira learned from his attempt to join the starting rotation last season, since his move back to the bullpen was a “team decision,” which is like not being able to ask whether I like living in Koenji because it had been my wife’s idea to live here.
When I carried a credential around my neck, I never asked teams to interview players unless I wanted to ensure his availability for more than a few minutes. I expected Seibu to tell me when and where my time with Taira would take place, but it was never made explicit and perhaps because of a miscommunication, the interview never happened.
At the time I requested to talk with Taira, I also applied for field access a few days later, but no pass was waiting for me that day, although I was eventually let in.
I then had productive chats with Kona Takahashi, and Orix’s Allen Kuri and Anderson Lopes, but was also chastised by a Buffaloes press flunky for talking to catcher Kenya Wakatsuki in a hallway where I had access and where I had previously interviewed other clubs’ players.
A week later, whether it was the Taira mess-up or the Buffaloes ratting me out for breaking THEIR rules, I was denied access to speak with Seibu’s Tyler Nevin and players from the Marines. The Lions said if I wanted a pass, I would have to beg Lotte for crappy access.
Not surprisingly, my desire to remain something of an NPB insider is rapidly dwindling. It’s just so much easier to do your own thing without begging.
